July 11, 2007

"You can find sex anywhere if you want to. . . . There's just some sick people out there." So says developer Sandor Shapery -- whose name is an anagram for Harder Ass Pony. He's wrong and he's right. He's wrong, because obviously his building is a phallic symbol. It's just silly to deny it. But he's right that no one ought to care. Nearly all tall buildings are phallic symbols. (I found a vulva symbol building that one time.) Deal with it people! The phalluses are everywhere. Get a grip!

I suspect that most females in the cocktail lounge would secretly be comparing us to the force and majesty of that proud edifice!

It makes me wilt like a moth in a flame just thinking about peering down for a reassuring look while using any urinal in that building. Jokes about how cold the water is, or how deep is the water, in the urinal would ring hollow indeed there!

For a female building, consider the new Roman Catholic Cathedral in Oakland CA.http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://sfgate.com/c/pictures/2005/05/22/ba_high_res_craig.jpg&imgrefurl=http://fumare.blogspot.com/2005_05_01_archive.html&h=438&w=498&sz=38&hl=en&start=10&tbnid=nt6q_u7wbRO0wM:&tbnh=114&tbnw=130&prev=/images%3Fq%3Doakland%2Bcatholic%2Bcathedral%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26rls%3DGGIC,GGIC:2007-05,GGIC:en

I guess I’m the only person on this thread who looks at Boing Boing regularly, but they did a posting just this week about some unmistakably penile-looking concrete traffic posts in Keizer, Oregon. That posting led to a blizzard of links to photos of buildings whose phallic nature was only noticed after they had been erected. So to speak.

That proposed Chinese Olympic Stadium could indeed be nicknamed the Vulvadome, and if built, could trigger many an Edifice Complex. (Oh, somebody was gonna say it -- and vet66 practically did.)

There was a Greenwich Village rock club I remember that would have done Judy Chicago proud, called The Big Kahuna. Its interiors were designed on a surf-shack motif, and above the entrance was a neon sign of what was supposed to be the outline of a surfboard -- but it looked more like the outline of something else. Good thing The Big Kahuna went out of business in fairly short order, because I think my friends were getting tired of me referring to it as The Big Vagina.

You know, I've always had a hard time with that. I mean, where are you coming from?

My old architect friend, Dick, designed a similar residential tower that got him in a lot of trouble. The condominiums started leaking. His wife said she didn't want her face splattered all over the newpapers.

With this project being in San Diego, a big Navy town, do you think it will fill up with seamen after it's erected?